


Try Your Wings

by Calliope_Soars



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: Cavafy, F/M, One Shot, poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 09:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1424062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calliope_Soars/pseuds/Calliope_Soars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mindy had proven to be a torch that lit up the darkest corners of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Try Your Wings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nicasio_silang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicasio_silang/gifts).



> This was inspired by [gabbysilang](http://gabbysilang.tumblr.com/) who introduced me to the poet Cavafy. 
> 
> Poetry gives me Danny feels - it cannot be helped.
> 
> Unbeta'ed - so all mistakes are mine, apologies.
> 
>  **Music** : _Try Your Wings_ – Blossom Dearie  
>  _Fade Into You_ – Mazzy Star  
>  _The Light_ – Common

_Body, remember not just how much you were loved,_  
 _not simply those beds on which you have lain,_  
 _but also the desire for you that shone_  
 _plainly in the eyes that gazed at you,_  
 _and quavered in the voice for you, though_  
 _by some chance obstacle was finally forestalled._  
 _Now that everything is finally in the past,_  
 _it seems as though you did yield to those desires ―_  
 _how they shone, remember, in the eyes that gazed at you,  
_ _how they quavered in the voice for you ― body, remember._

_\- Cavafy  
_  

* * *

   
She had a way of making him feel clumsy and sturdy at the same time. He couldn’t help but reach for her regardless of how terrified these flares of unsteadiness made him feel. His hand always found its way to the small of her back, his fingers perpetually itching to touch her in some way. His body was braver than he could ever hope to be and unconsciously inched him closer to her frame in countless quiet subtle moments.

  
He liked to think that their dynamic was unique. Unlike what either one had shared with previous partners. They were better, larger than anything he dared hope for himself. They had grown together. Perhaps they had always been growing towards each other, until they had matched their grooves and dents to form some awkward beautiful shape entirely their own. He longed to curve into her frame and show her how well matched they were, beyond all the bickering and banter.

  
He let her see his ugly parts; the mean streak that his father’s rejection had caused to seep into a sweet little boy, the judgemental side that his ex-wife’s betrayal had hammered into parts of his soul. Danny showed her everything and even though it brought him some peace, there was always a part of him that feared that one day she would throw her hands up in disgust and walk away from him. They had a precarious thing, something precious but easily broken if you came at it too hard. He lived with a perpetual fear that one day their friendship would inevitably trip up and shatter altogether. Danny would watch her with wonder, this dread still sitting like a stone at the pit of his stomach, baffled by how fearless such a tiny woman could be.

  
On especially lonely nights, where he’d had too much scotch or had a nightmare that was a little too realistic – he would splash his face with cold water and stare at his reflection for the longest time. Danny would think of her then, as he met his own gaze dead on until he became a weird array of features and was unrecognisable even to himself. His reflection would blink at him mockingly but he’d keep his stare steady and wonder what she saw that others had dismissed so easily in the past.  
  
  
Danny would take a moment to remind himself to breathe through his anxiety, while mulling over those bits that he didn’t even like to look at and had spent the better part of several decades denying as part of him. Self-pity was easy in those moments, just inches from his fingertips. Unsurprisingly she’d come to mind then, all light and sparkles and just like that his frowning reflection would ease into something less heavy.

  
Mindy had proven to be a torch that lit up the darkest corners of him. She had unlocked so many closed off spaces within him that sometimes he felt dizzy with potential he had never let himself hope for. How do you tell someone that? How do you explain that they saved you from yourself without scaring them off?

  
It was all too frightening to contemplate so Daniel Castellano stayed mute.

  
He watched her, stayed on the periphery of her life and caught as much of her light as he could catch without admitting how much he depended on it. There were times where it hurt too much, to watch and not touch, so he would attempt to slink away then. However it felt like Mindy could sense these moments before he was able to fully hide from her. She would burst in, grab his sleeve and drag him back until all he could manage was an aching smile.

  
In those 5 AM moments in front of his mirror, when his bed felt as empty as his eyes looked, he would grab a tattered leather journal and write down what he couldn’t say to her in real life. Sometimes they were poems about her skin, her eyes, or the way her fingers would curl around a strand of her hair whenever she was nervous. How her smell made him want to sink his nose into the hollow of her neck and inhale until there was only Mindy, press lips against her collarbone until he had memorised her skin right there and then move to smooth them along every other patch of flesh. Other times Danny would write long confessionals, painful letters that he never sent that said how much he missed her when she left a room. How happy he was that she didn’t let him hide from her, regardless of the bittersweet taste it left him with. There were pages where he’d just write down ‘I love you’ until his fingers felt raw and cramped and the words blurred into oddly shaped letters that made him feel angry and frustrated and just so goddamn sad.

  
Mindy knew all of him but she didn’t know about his journal and his secret words. She didn’t know how it tortured and saved him at the same time. In the light of day, his own words would mock him, call him a coward for not letting them move off of the paper and past his lips.

  
It was that spineless part of him that helped her write that letter on the plane. Danny had spoken his words but had kept them hidden at the same time. Little Shakespeare she had said and his heart rose and crashed in a matter of seconds. His words for her were handed over and passed on to another man, and he had no one to blame but himself. Danny watched her hit send. He took another secret moment to gaze at her without her noticing. His light, his secret love. He smiled soft and slow as she passed him muttering something about tonic water and repaying him.

  
The plane shook then, but what scared him most was that he had given up so completely without ever trying. He glanced over, wanted to grab her hand so she could steady him and make things light again – except she wasn’t there. Without realising he had been molded into someone who could only fit around her – no one else would do, nothing else made sense.

  
Danny tried bracing himself in his seat, but as usual his brave body propelled him towards her without a second thought. His mouth smoothed softly over hers until she bent back into him. Danny cupped her face reverently and poured all his unsaid words into his kiss, deepening it until he felt her gasp sweetly. He could not understand any of this as his mind began to catch up to his body, so instead he let his instincts take over. Danny continued to clutch at her to bring her closer, to kiss her harder until they moved so desperately against one another air became an issue.

  
The pads of his thumb gently brushed against her cheeks once more, as if to say goodbye and he awkwardly let his hands drop. Mindy met his gaze then, not looking as brave as he knew her to be.

  
The sight of her uncertainty made him feel cowardly, so he apologised. Danny was ready to take it all back – to rewind, to keep things as they were and keep them safe from tripping up and breaking into a thousand little pieces.

  
Danny started counting, while his eyes darted to hers for a sign of some kind. Before he realised, before he could feel any sort of pain or hopelessness, he’d said three and she hadn’t moved. He wished he could just take her in his arms again, to whisper the words he had spent so long writing in his journal, to explain how afraid he truly was to lose her from his life.

  
Danny was not a brave man, unsteady in many ways, but her face just then made him bold – or perhaps it was just desperation that took hold of him.

  
His voice had cracked, but he had said it. There was no denying it, no take backs. Danny had risked it all for that extra number. He would risk anything for Mindy.

  
There was a small fierce part of him that realised he wasn’t plummeting to the ground, that this wasn’t them breaking into something unfixable but merely changing their shape into something better. This was them growing once more.

  
Mindy kissed him at the count of four and proved how easy things became when you were just a little braver.  
  



End file.
